Orchid Weather
I loved that jungle, the one behind the house:
it bore the wild Malayan Emergency
leaf-knitting colonies of chilli-red ants
and scowling ahmas
dicing pork
to a very fine and furious mince
enfolded in dumplings
purple chicken’s entrails
sweating in pots of broth.
Fortunes told, widows in black,
clairvoyants in a house of exorcism –
more incense in the shrine, fresher
pyramids of tangerines.
Burst fireworks confettied the air.
Young fauna, my brother and I
dried off in Royal Selangor
Golf Club towels in a house that
reeked of quinine, limes and gin,
almost mixed them myself
for darling spinsters
who never scolded,
with butterfly collections
and how-to-paint books.
We became their undeparted sons
two cheeky gnomes
under cushions
in their too cold conditioned
highland mansions.
Inquisitive and flirtatious
with the servant classes
we prospered in the orchid weather
over-nurtured and beautiful.
Chauffeur, silent behind the wheel
Koran on the radio;
and “our gardener”, the greatest
in the business, hands stained with the soil
of an intense wormy blackness
calloused and hot to the touch. Recipient
of our old London blankets, for the family
we never saw.
We mimicked the ahmas
their singsong speech
angry waving of meat cleavers.
We were Master’s sons risking sour medicine
to take new territory: alcoves and playgrounds
of camphor and silk, black lacquer
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poem by Adam Aitken
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